


Wildfire

by DracoMaleficium



Series: Elseworlds [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, King-Beyond-the-Wall, M/M, Sex In A Cave, Sexuality Crisis, Snapshots, Spying, Undercover Missions, Wildling Culture & Customs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 17:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium
Summary: The King Beyond the Wall is nothing like Bruce expected.





	Wildfire

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this one is another writing exercise for an AU that was born out of [this ask on my tumblr](http://dracze.tumblr.com/post/172246120373/if-the-characters-in-batman-and-the-barman-himself). Once Robatics floated the idea of Joker as a Mance Rayder type figure I drowned in plot and world-building ideas and couldn't let this one go. In the end I combined both Mance and Ygritte in him, just as Bruce is a stand-in for both Ned Stark and Jon Snow in my version of the story, and there's tons of world-building that I didn't have the opportunity to include in this short glimpse into the AU but I hope it will be more or less clear.
> 
> It might be less so if you're not familiar with Game of Thrones, so for those of you guys here's a quick summary: Bruce is the son of a noble House of Wayne who are wardens of the North, and as a result of various political shenanigas as punishment he is banished to become a brother of the Night's Watch - an organization that's meant to defend the Wall, a literal giant ice-wall border that separates the kingdom from northern wilderness. North of the Wall live tribes of what the Southerners call "Wildlings" that the Watch guards the kingdom against. Bruce is sent to the Wildling camp as a spy to pretend that he deserted and wants to join them, to gather information on why they seem to be gathering under one individual and marching in a massive army towards the Wall. Think that's the bulk of it. 
> 
> Might write more for this one some time because I really do love the idea. 
> 
> Many thanks to Ufonaut for the word-prompts that helped me get this snapshot done, to Robatics and Des for the brainstorming and to the original Anon for the idea! Hope you guys enjoy this.

“Lord Bat!” 

Bruce rises from where he tended the fire struggling to burn in front of the command tent, and looks up into the pale, smiling face of the King Beyond the Wall. 

“Your Grace,” he says, giving the man a stiff nod. He doesn’t tense, exactly — that would require him to be relaxed in the first place, and he hasn’t allowed himself a moment of that ever since he was dragged into the Wildling camp. But he feels his muscles locking tighter, all the same. 

There is light in Jack Border’s abnormally green eyes. Determination, Bruce thinks, and the regular, ever-present gleam of playful mischief that can spark into cruelty without warning, and — something else, something deep and piercing as he crunches towards Bruce across the snow.

Bruce has seen this smile before, has seen those eyes lit up in similar searing heat. The memory tips his ears pink, and he fights the urge to look away. Whatever this is, it probably won’t be good. He needs to stay on his guard.

“Just the man I needed,” Jack declares, loudly, drawing the attention of the amused Wildlings clustered around the closest tents. He swings his long spindly arm to loop it around Bruce’s shoulders once he’s close enough. “Come with me, Lord Bat, I want to show you something.”

Even if Bruce wanted to protest, he wouldn’t be able to. Not with the way the arm around his shoulders presses down, suggesting that either Bruce move right _now_ or one of the many, many short blades Jack is known to carry on his person might suddenly find its way into some rather unfortunate parts of Bruce’s anatomy. And then there’s Jack’s Wildling parody of the Kingsguard, who even now are flexing their muscles, moving forward —

“No, you darlings stay back,” Jack tells them dismissively. “This is private kingly business, you understand. Can’t have you stinking up the place with your terrible breaths when I’m trying to be all _political_.”

Some of the men laugh at that, and stand down. But not all.

“It’s not safe,” growls Grundy, who, as Bruce has learned over the days he’s spent in the camp, tends to be rather slower on the uptake. 

Jack sighs. He pats Bruce’s shoulder companionably and shakes his head as if to say, _Underlings, am I right?_ , one sovereign to another. “Wait right here, gorgeous, and don’t go anywhere,” he instructs. “This won’t take a heartbeat.”

He turns to Grundy, arches an eyebrow, and demands, “I didn’t just hear you insinuate I cannot hold my own against a single unarmed Crow cast-away, now, did I, Grundy my sweet?”

“It’s not safe,” Grundy repeats, sticking to what he knows. He’s glaring at Bruce, completely oblivious to the sudden drop in temperature, or to the fact that his colleagues from Jack’s Guard are steadily leaving a growing circle around him as though he’s suddenly become contagious. “He’s a Crow. Crows want to hurt us.”

Bruce can’t see the grin Jack flashes, not with Jack’s back facing him, but he’s seen similar scenarios play out enough times to be able to imagine it in startling detail. He watches as Jack gets closer to Grundy, and almost feels pity for the hapless half-giant. 

“Oh, but he isn’t a Crow anymore, is he? We’ve established that,” Jack says in that lilting, sing-songy way of his. “He’s a Bat, or something else entirely that’s yet to be determined. You should remember, pumpkin. You were there in the tent with us.”

“Don’t trust him,” Grundy insists, and Jack clucks, shaking his head from side to side, dyed green hair whipping this way and that on the biting wind. 

“Your concern is touching,” he assures, stepping close to Grundy and looping his arm around the giant man’s neck to bring his head down. “Really, it is. But you see, pet, by voicing it this way, you have rather implied that I am incapable of handling our strapping new friend here on my own, and thus, that I am weak. Do you think I’m weak?”

Bruce watches, heart in his throat, as the gears in Grundy’s head appear to laboriously shift. He seems to have caught on to the gleam in Jack’s eyes, and that it doesn’t seem to herald anything good for his future if he missteps. He swallows. 

“No?” he tries.

Jack’s grin turns positively benevolent. “And do you really think I need you guys around to protect me from him, or, for that matter, from anyone?”

Grundy gives it some due consideration, and then he beams at Jack. “No!”

“Because what am I?”

“You’re King?” Grundy guesses. 

“I am, too, aren’t I?” Jack gives Grundy’s sallow cheek a loving pat, and then a loud peck for good measure. “And don’t you forget it, now, all right? I like you, Grundy-bear. I’d hate to have to make another example out of you.”

He points to Bruce, and gives him a wink. “Now, I’m going to take our friend Lord Bat here to the special place, and you won’t follow us. You’ll stay right here and make sure that the fire doesn’t go out. Because that’s a very important job and I’m relying on you to do it. Can you do it for me, Grundy?”

“Yes!” Grundy agrees, and only requires a short while to come to this decision. He still glares at Bruce, though, and meaningfully pats the great big throwing axe strapped to his back. 

Bruce nods, keeping himself still. Grundy nods back, satisfied that his message has been received loud and clear, and plops down on the snow in front of the fire, right by the closed flap of the command tent. 

Jack pats him on the top of his head, fondly, like one might pat a child. “Capital,” he declares, and looks around the field. “Anyone else got a problem with me and Lord Bat getting some quality alone time? No? Splendid. As you were, my loving subjects, as you were.”

“Don’t wear him out, J,” someone calls, and snickers erupt around the clearing. 

Jack beams at them all and stomps back to Bruce, then grabs him by the forearm. “Oh, you know me, I cannot promise that,” he shoots back, and the Wildlings see them out with jeers and laughter that no lord South of the Wall would ever tolerate from his subjects, to say nothing of a king. 

Jack’s grip on Bruce’s forearm tightens. There’s nothing for it. Bruce lets himself be pulled away from the tent field whether he likes it or not. 

“Where are you taking me?” he risks as soon as they are out of earshot.

“It’s a surprise, Lord Bat. Don’t worry, though, it’s not one of my more… lethal ones.” 

He laughs, and Bruce’s blood runs just a little bit colder. He’s heard stories about Jack Border back at Castle Black, and he knows, now, after a week in his ‘court,’ just how true they are. With this man, It doesn’t take much at all to turn even the littlest thing into a lethal surprise. Which is perhaps the very reason the Wildlings chose him to lead them over any one of their own, bigger, stronger, even smarter than Jack though they may be.

Bruce had never seen the legendary wildfire actually used. But he’s heard about it, and he imagines that it must burn in much the same way that Jack’s green eyes do — bright, constant, relentless and all-consuming. 

That’s not all of it though, Bruce thinks as he lets the strange, spindly, giggling figure lead him away. It can’t be all of it. It’s not just the fear Jack inspires that’s made them trust him with their survival. It wasn’t fear of the man that inspired Grundy to speak out, or to glare at Bruce with such fierce protectiveness.

They love him. Truly, in that fierce, uncomplicated way one might love a brother, warts and all. The ones that know him, anyway, and the others know enough of his reputation to fall in line even though he isn’t one of them by blood, even though he came to them from the detested South. 

Buce has never seen this particular brand of loyalty anywhere before. Certainly not down South, where the big families are far more concerned in indulging their vicious little power plays than caring for the people under their protection, and not even in his own family home, and he’s proud in the knowledge that the people of the North loved his parents, too, enough to go to war for them without a second thought. 

But this is different. The people here — the men _and_ women, which in itself took Bruce a while to get used to — will follow their King Beyond the Wall through wildfire and back not because of the power of his name, his bloodline or even the deftness of his blades, but because they chose to. Because they trusted him, despite his many… eccentricities. 

And apparently, Jack hasn’t let them down yet. 

Bruce wonders if that trust will hold out once the teeming, human mass crashes against the unforgiving ice of the Wall. 

“You didn’t have to do it,” he finds himself saying. 

Jack is still pulling him forward by the arm, leading Bruce up a narrow path between the icy rocks. “Hmm?”

“What Grundy did, back there, was out of love and concern for you, not disrespect,” Bruce tells him. He thinks he can be bold. Jack’s invited him to speak plainly before, and he seems to appreciate it in his people far more than he appreciates kowtowing. “I don’t think he actually thought you incapable. It’s only natural that they don’t trust me, especially around you. You didn’t have to threaten him.”

“Ah, but of course I did. People were watching. It wouldn’t do to have them start thinking I need someone like Grundy around me at all times just _in case_. That’s what the Southern Kneelers do.”

“They respect you,” Bruce points out. 

“Yes.” Jack shoots Bruce a wolfish grin over his shoulder. “But unlike the weaklings bowing and scraping to any lord that happens to ride on by, the respect I get from the Free Folk is not unconditional. The moment they start to think I’m weak or unfit to lead them, they’ll replace me with someone else, as well they should. They’re not idiots. That’s how things work up here, Lord Bat.”

Right. “Seems exhausting,” Bruce mutters, and Jack laughs. 

“Oh, I get _some_ perks out of it,” he comments, and flutters his eyelashes at Bruce. His eyes gleam over the kohl smudges at the bottom of his eyelids. “As you’ve seen for yourself.”

Once again Bruce’s face heats up, and the blush blooms warm and fast enough to almost push back at the biting frost. 

He’s thinking of it now, despite his best efforts to block the memories. The low, breathy sounds that woke him up that first night he spent in Jack’s tent, the rustle of people moving under the furs, the slap of flesh hitting flesh time and time again. The sight of Jack’s head thrown back, sweat beading over his brow, mouth open in pleasure as one of his Kingsguard moved above him rhythmically, grunting and sighing his name into Jack’s shoulder. 

Jack’s eyes, open and feverish, wildfire green, staring right back at Bruce through it all. The laughter when Bruce looked away, bleeding into a moan. 

And that’s another thing. It came as a shock to Bruce, but around the camp, everyone seems to know about Jack’s… proclivities. They even joke about it, with Jack himself leading by example, and yet they still follow him, not even ignoring it for the shameful secret it is the way people might have done at the Wall or anywhere else South of here, but actually… 

Accepting it. Like they accept any other part of him. As though it isn’t shameful, as though it’s just as normal as a man bedding a woman, as though the fact that Jack enjoys inviting men to his bed and spreading his legs for them doesn’t make him any less worthy of their respect. 

Bruce doesn’t understand it. He’s tried, though, and carefully observed, and he’s come to the conclusion that the Free Folk not having family names and seats of power to pass down might have something to do with it. When the tribe itself, rather than your name or legacy, is the important thing to preserve, when it’s the thing that protects you more than bloodlines, more than titles and honors and fealties, well…

Perhaps indiscretions in bed, of whatever nature, stop being as much of a crime when you don’t have to worry about heirs to keep your name alive. Maybe then certain things are easier to accept as just part of being human. 

Maybe. Probably. That doesn’t make it any easier to wrap Bruce’s head around the whole thing, and no less shocking to wake up in the middle of the night to see Jack in the arms of yet another muscled bear of a man, not an ounce of shame between either of them. 

There’s a cough somewhere above him, and Bruce looks up, startled to find Jack gazing down at him from atop a ledge. He must have climbed it while Bruce was — 

Well. He looks into Jack’s eyes, and fights the urge to fidget at the dark amusement he finds there. 

Jack probably knows exactly what Bruce was thinking about, and suddenly, Bruce experiences a stab of fear that he might suspect all about the sudden uncomfortable tightness in Bruce’s underthings, too, the very same one Bruce has done his best to fight. 

He’d never had to fight _this_ particular instinct so hard before he came face to face with this man and all his shamelessness. 

Curse him. 

“Come on up, Lord Bat,” Jack invites him, grinning down at him from the ledge, extending his gloved hand to help Bruce up. “We’re almost there.”

Bruce considers rejecting the help, but no. His position is too precarious to risk offending Jack in any way. “Don’t call me that,” he grouses instead, and grabs his hand. Jack pulls, and Bruce hoists himself up on the slippery rock. 

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“I stopped being a Wayne of Gotham when I took my vows. I have no right to the Bat sigil anymore. You know this. You were a member of the Night’s Watch too, once, and you took the same vows I did.”

 _Before you deserted and joined the enemy._ Bruce doesn’t say it, of course, but he thinks Jack might read something to this extent in his face anyway. 

“But you’re not a Crow anymore either,” Jack hums, eyes calming somewhat now, turning thoughtful as he regards Bruce. “Or so you’d like us to believe.”

“I’m not,” Bruce insists, and prays to the Old Gods that Jack will accept it like he seems to have done the first time Bruce told him the same lie.

“Then what are you?”

Bruce thinks about it, holding Jack’s unsettling gaze. 

“I’m Bruce,” he decides, and hopes to all that is holy that Jack won’t be able to see just how much it cost him to say it — to reject his own family in the same breath as his Brothers, in words if not in thought. “No more than that. Not until I earn the right to be more.”

Jack stands there a moment longer, watching him, letting hair whip around his face in a shock of color. He’s smiling, but this time it’s subtler, gentler, and maybe even a little —

Sad?

“You know nothing, Bruce Wayne,” he whispers, and then takes Bruce’s hand again before Bruce can protest. “Come on. The cave is just up that next ledge.”

“Cave?” 

Jack only grins, sharply amused once again. He turns without checking if Bruce follows him and hoists himself up the ledge he pointed to, bringing, for a moment, his arse on a level with Bruce’s face. 

Bruce stares longer than he thinks he should, and curses Jack for that, too. 

“Do you know that the name Jack Border is made up?” the King Beyond the Wall tells him conversationally once Bruce follows him up, leading Bruce down a precarious narrow sliver of rock. 

Bruce snorts. “I suspected.”

“I always liked jesters,” Jack confesses. “Dreamed of being one when I was a kid. I even performed on the streets whenever I could get away with it, and mostly used that name when I did. But I’ve had many different names since then, Lord Bat. I used to be a Stone, a Rivers, even a Flowers. I sailed with the Cobblepots across the Narrow Sea and supped with the mountain Clans, all while wearing different names. This one is just the one I happened to wear when they caught me and sent me to the Wall.”

Bruce has heard the circumstances of that particular event, and doesn’t know how to comment. He doesn’t think Jack wants him to. He follows him in silence. 

“What I mean,” Jack picks up, sliding a little on the icy rocks, “is that names don’t matter at the end of the day. They’re just empty air, and you can discard them for new ones whenever you want. It doesn’t change who you are underneath the trimmings.”

“And who do you think I am?” Bruce demands, sharply, coming to stand next to Jack at the narrow mouth to a cave that must have been their destination. 

Jack glances to him, and his smile is a slash of red against the snow. 

“You’re Lord Bat, first and foremost,” he tells Bruce. “You never really stopped being a Bat. They might have thought they turned you into a Crow, but they never did, did they? How could they, when you’ve got too much of the Bat in you. And of a Lord, for that matter. A young, pampered little Lord born to rule and expecting the world to accommodate him, even now.”

“I don’t expect the world to accommodate me,” Bruce protests.

Jack is already moving forward into the cave. Bruce follows and all of a sudden startles at the blast of heat oozing from within, a stark contrast to the icy air of the world of white just beyond. 

What _is_ this place, and why did Jack want to bring him here?

“Oh, but you do, darling,” Jack argues, his voice amplified into an echo that booms off the walls and envelops Bruce instantly. “And that’s exactly what I’m doing right now: accommodating you. Come along, now, don’t bats love caves?”

“Jack,” Bruce calls out after him, rooted to the spot. “What is this place? What are we doing here?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” Jack’s voice assures him, its owner already disappearing into the gloom deep inside the cave. “Not unless you want me to.”

“Jack!”

“Catch me if you can!”

His laughter guides Bruce as he sprints after the man, stumbling as his eyes try to adjust to the near-darkness thickening around him the deeper he ventures into the cave. But then he seems to round a corner, and blinks in the sudden onslaught of gentle light that, in contrast, seems almost as bright as the sun itself. 

The air is hot in here, almost stifling, much like the air was down South just before a summer storm. There’s torches stuck into crevices in the rock that are already lit — probably Jack did it before he led Bruce here. The flickering flames cast a warm, easy glow over the bubbling, steaming surface of what looks like a pond in the middle of the natural cavern, and Bruce understands. 

A hot spring. 

Jack has already shed most of his heavy furs and the deviantly, impossibly colorful clothes underneath. He grins at Bruce as he struggles to tug off a boot, then another, and then pulls down his trousers and underthings in one swift move. 

“Don’t just stand there, handsome, hop in,” he says, and then does exactly that, swathes of pale naked skin disappearing with a splash into the hot water. 

Bruce’s face is burning, and not all due to the heat curling from the spring. He watches Jack as he swims this way and that, a nearly white figure moving with grace under the water, and swallows at the sight of his round buttocks breaking the surface time and time again. 

Gods, he knows what Jack is doing. He doesn’t know if he can push the deception this far. 

But the alternative is death, if he slips and gives Jack any reason to suspect that he might still be loyal to the Watch. That he’s a spy. 

And he hasn’t had a bath in such a long time…

Jack laughs when Bruce finally starts tugging off his own furs, almost angrily. He can’t help it. He’s furious at himself, at Jack for putting him in this position, even at his Lord Commander for giving him this mission in the first place. He’s furious at the Southern families for their dirty self-serving politics that drove him to the Wall, and at their meaningless war, and he’s furious that the same war took his family from him for the crime of trying to stay reasonable in an impossible situation. He’s furious at winter itself, for the Long Night it will bring, for the terrors that turned out to be far more real than anyone could dare suspect.

And he’s so very, very tired. 

A dip in a hot spring won’t fix any of it, he knows. But it might just make his body feel slightly cleaner, slightly warmer, and that…

He wants to afford himself that much, if he can. 

He refuses to feel shame at his nakedness, and holds Jack’s gleaming gaze when he slowly steps into the water.

Ye gods, it’s bliss. Steam caresses him clammy and tight, and the heat of the water, after the initial burn that feels almost unbearable, saps at his tension as though trying to suck it all out. Bruce keeps wading until he’s ready to go all in, and then he bends his legs, bringing his entire body under the surface, giving himself a moment to just… be. 

“There, now, isn’t that better?” Jack sings as Bruce’s head breaks the surface again, and he wades over to the edge, resting his back against the slippery rock. 

Bruce looks at him and says, “Yes,” because it’s true. After weeks of trekking through frozen wilderness, snatching what little sleep he could on cold hard ground and rationing every little morsel of food, every sip of water, this — this feels almost as good as laying his head down on the feather bed back home. Bruce moves his muscles, trying to let them relax, and dives once again, stretching under the water, enjoying the way the heat laps at him, chasing the weeks’ worth of chill from his very bones. 

He knows he can’t let his guard down completely, and is grateful for the knowledge. Being in Jack’s camp hasn’t given him much time and opportunity to dwell on everything that’s happened to him since he’d left Gotham to go South, and he prefers it that way. He’d much rather watch his every step, weigh every word and thought, to stay alive and learn as much as he can for his Brothers than spend his time replaying everything in his mind till he’s heaving with it. His dreams have been doing enough of that for him as it is.

And this isn’t a rest. Not really. 

But he can accept it as a momentary respite for his body if not his mind, and Gods, he hasn’t realized how much he needed it until now. 

He swims back and forth, losing himself in it, and Jack watches him in silence, lounging against the rock. Then Bruce pauses and looks at him, and Jack’s smile changes. He crooks a finger, and beckons Bruce over with his eyes falling half-lidded, bright in the shimmering torch-light which dances in rippling shadows over the walls of the cave.

“Come here.”

Bruce swallows, searching his face. 

He swims closer. 

“I don’t know if I can give you what you want,” he says, softly, opting for honesty. 

“And what do you think I want?” Jack’s smile grows, slants into something teasing. 

Bruce looks down his body, and then Jack’s. He tries to ignore the way his body flushes and his cock stirs under the water as Jack’s eyes roam over his body in turn. 

“Smart Bat,” Jack coos, pushing away from the rock and closer to Bruce. “But we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I just want you to relax, my sweet. We’re safe here. Turn around.”

“What —”

There’s hands on his shoulders, wet and hot, digging into his skin. Bruce shudders, and lets out a grunt that surprises even him. Jack’s hands press on, pushing against a stubborn knot of tension Bruce had no idea was there.

“Shhh,” Jack whispers, mouth moving against the skin of Bruce’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Let me pamper you, my Lord.”

“Jack…”

“Hmm?” Jack’s hands are still moving, digging into Bruce’s skin, teasing out the tension there in a way that the water can’t. 

Bruce closes his eyes, trying to keep his breath steady. It’s no use. His heart is thudding, and he’s harder than he ever remembers being, the desire coasting in his body making him shiver, ache, go stupid with need. 

“Don’t stop,” he whispers, and he can feel the smile on Jack’s face as he kisses the skin of Bruce’s shoulder, licking away a salty drop.

“As my Lord commands.”

This isn’t betraying his vows, Bruce tries to tell himself as Jack’s hands explore and caress his body. They haven’t done anything yet. They haven’t even kissed. And they won’t. Bruce knows that he’s prone to certain desires that the Faith would regard unnatural, but he’s never had any trouble keeping them in check. There’s no reason why this should be any different…

He opens his eyes long enough to glance down at his own cock, fat with blood and straining under the water, and almost laughs at the sheer magnitude of that lie. 

Nothing about Jack has been what he’d expected. Including Bruce’s own reactions to him. He’d never wanted to touch another person as much as he wants to turn around now and lay his hands on Jack’s narrow hips, pulling him close. 

He wonders if any of it is the anger, building and building and building inside him over the last year. If it’s the tension he hasn’t been able to deal with, short of simply trying his best to push it away. There’s so much of it coiling in him now, tingling all over his skin, jumping in sparks at Jack’s careful touch. 

Maybe. Probably. But he’d be a fool if he told himself that’s all there is to it. 

Jack’s hands slip under the water now, low, skimming gentle touches along Bruce’s buttocks. They press against the skin there, and squeeze, kneading gently. Bruce lets out a breath that stutters on the way out, and bites his lip.

Then the hands disappear, and he can hear Jack moving, rippling the water around them as he comes to stand in front of Bruce. Bruce can feel the heat of his body, so much more physical, so much more heady than that of the spring.

“Bruce,” Jack whispers, and Bruce opens his eyes to meet his, so very, very close.

Wildfire, Bruce thinks, licking his bottom lip. Green like the wildfire from Alfred’s stories.

Except now Alfred is gone, probably dead, just like his parents. His Brothers, so far away, and maybe even dead too. The person that Bruce was for all of them feels so very distant, now, as though he’d been someone else entirely. 

They’re all gone. He’s alone. 

Except for Jack, who is here, who is looking at Bruce with want that burns hotter than the water around them.

Hot like wildfire. 

He puts his hand on Bruce’s chest, palm flat, and presses, gently, until Bruce backs up to the rocky edge. 

“We shouldn’t,” he tries, weakly, as Jack’s other hand moves under the water towards Bruce’s cock.

It pauses just short of touching, long, elegant fingers suspended in place as Jack searches his face. 

“Are you saying that because you don’t want to,” he asks, “or because you think you shouldn’t want to?”

“I don’t know.” Bruce lifts his arm, and covers the hand over his chest with his. “Is this a test?” 

Jack smirks, moving closer still. The hand under the water still isn’t touching him. “Of course,” he allows easily. “Everything is a test. But I won’t kill you if you don’t fuck me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Don’t you want to test if I’ll be loyal to my vows?” Bruce manages, trying to sound like his heart isn’t trying to beat out of his chest. 

Jack cocks his head to the side, and laughs softly, the sound almost sweet in the rippling echo. “The vows only mention never taking a wife or fathering children,” he points out. “They don’t say anything about taking another man to bed. So it wouldn’t be much of a test, now, would it? 

“I want you, Bruce Wayne of Gotham,” he purrs, moving closer, so close that Bruce can feel the shape of the words on his own lips. “Do you want me?”

 _Yes_ , Bruce wants to cry, and all the more fiercely because he knows he shouldn’t. 

Instead he kisses Jack, and sighs when Jack’s long fingers _finally_ wrap around his cock. 

He keeps his eyes open, as does Jack. They kiss deeply, openly, and Jack smiles into his lips when Bruce grabs onto his hips the way he wanted, pulling their groins together. 

“Teach me,” he whispers, and Jack laughs, bringing one wet arm around Bruce’s neck. 

“You know nothing, Bruce Wayne,” he whispers, and kisses Bruce again. 

Bruce looks into his eyes green like wildfire, and, for the time being, lets himself burn.


End file.
